Nothing But the Truth (2 page)

“It’s not weakness to give someone a chance to prove himself. I’ll be watching this case. Everett Marshall makes one tiny screw-up, and I’ll be in court asking for the max. You can count on that.”

Ryan smiled. “Fair enough. Good job, Bill.” She knew without looking he was probably shaking his head as she walked away.

*

As Brett waited in a long line to speak to a prosecutor about a pending case, she felt the insistent vibration of her BlackBerry again. She noted her office number on the display and stepped out of the DA workroom to take the call.

“Yes?”

“Brett, are you on your way back to the office?”

Recognizing the impatient tone of her assistant/paralegal/office manager, Anthony Panetta, Brett smiled. “Not quite, Tony. I have to make one more stop. What’s up?”

“Well, Mrs. Jarvis is sitting here waiting. She brought cash. Whatever good will you’re spreading around down there can wait until after you sign up this paying client, don’t you think?”

Brett relied on Tony to run her business. He did a great job of keeping her on track, but he would never completely grasp her need to give each case her complete, undivided attention, no matter how much she was being paid. If Tony had his way, she wouldn’t take court-appointed cases like Everett Marshall’s. Unlike many attorneys, Brett spent as much time on these cases, which paid pennies on the dollar, as she did on her retained cases. She carried a heavy docket of court-appointed cases because she felt it was important to the process for everyone to have the best representation possible—no matter how much money they could afford to pay.

Tony interrupted her thoughts. “Oh, that e-mail you got? The guy wants you to call him. Only you. He wouldn’t give me any hints. Promise you’ll call him as soon as you get here. Maybe he has money too.”

Brett silently chided herself for not responding to the message herself. “Will you call him back and set up a meeting? I’ll make myself available for any time they want to meet this afternoon. And I swear I’ll be there to win over Mrs. Jarvis in about thirty minutes. Okay?”

Tony’s pronounced sigh conveyed his resignation to the fact he had no control over the situation. “Okay.”

Brett stepped back into the district attorney’s workroom. She was dismayed to see it was still crowded with lawyers jockeying for the attention of the prosecutors assigned to this particular court. Each of the twelve district courts located in the Dallas County courthouse contained one of these tiny offices located to the rear of each of courtroom. Though each prosecutor had an office on the eleventh floor of the building, these workrooms served as a war room of sorts from which they ran their morning docket. Two small desks, home to the number two and three prosecutors in the court, lined the walls of the outer section of the office. The only distinguishing characteristic between their work area and the closet-like space accorded to the court’s chief prosecutor was the presence of a door. The delay this morning was due in part to the fact that the chief prosecutor in this court, Jeff Oates, was huddled in his office with his boss, Ryan Foster.

Brett, like most everyone at the courthouse, knew who Ryan Foster was, by reputation if not personal acquaintance. Ryan was a career prosecutor. Anyone who had worked in and around Dallas County was familiar with the law and order approach of the formidable woman. Brett hadn’t had any direct contact with her, but she still felt her influence. It was definitely harder to work out deals with the prosecutors in the courts under Ryan’s direction. She had a tendency to be more hands-on than her counterparts, which translated into according less discretion to the prosecutors she supervised.

She even looks like a hard-ass.
Ryan’s blond hair was pulled back into a perfect French braid and her charcoal gray silk suit was perfectly pressed. Brett looked down at her own wrinkled suit and inwardly cursed at her inability to make it through an hour at the courthouse without looking as though she had slept in her clothes. Instinctively, she knew her hair was poking out from her head in a million different directions. She shook her head in wonder of Ryan’s tight braid.

As Brett looked closer, she wondered if Ryan’s fierce look was a bit contrived. Her eyes were an inviting shade of bluish gray, quick and alert, and the sharp lines of her suit didn’t completely conceal feminine curves. Ryan’s voice was commanding, but her tone was probably an integral part of her identity as a top dog at the DA’s office. Brett wondered what she sounded like at dinner with friends, whether she ever let her guard down.
I’d like to find out.

Her thoughts were interrupted on dual fronts. Ryan’s commanding tone grew in volume as her conversation with Jeff became heated, and, further interfering with her ability to adequately eavesdrop, Brett’s BlackBerry started jumping around in her purse. Cursing technology, Brett fished the beast out of her bag and read the display. Tony’s growing impatience was clear
:
I hope you are pulling into the parking lot. I can only restrain Mrs. Jarvis for so long!
Brett looked once again at the line of attorneys in front of her, all now actively listening in on Ryan’s discourse, and she decided to abandon this quest for the money-in-the-bank case waiting at her office.

*

“I know you’re the chief, but this an important case. My personal involvement will demonstrate how seriously this office takes this case.”

“Ryan, I’ve worked for months preparing for this trial.”

Ryan knew he was right. She also knew how much she would have resented this intrusion were the roles reversed. Jeff Oates was an excellent prosecutor. He wasn’t showy, but he worked hard and juries liked him. He had earned his position as chief in this court, and his position gave him the privilege of picking the best cases for himself. Ryan’s announcement that she was taking over as lead attorney on the Edwards case was a blow to his authority.

Ryan flashed back to a similar conversation she’d had with her boss, the elected district attorney, earlier in the week.

“If I were him, I’d consider quitting. He’s worked on this case for months and I’m supposed to walk in there and rip it out from under him?”

“Ryan, you need to get your name in the news. Unfortunately, your current position has left you with a low profile. Make a splashy headline, and the press will cover the front page with stories about this case and all your past victories. All that free press will bring the donations rolling in. Take the Edwards case. It’s juicy, and the trial will last for days.”

“Sir, it wasn’t that long ago I had my own court. I remember what it’s like to be in charge and then have someone from upstairs come yank it out from under you.”

He ignored the implication. “Don’t ‘sir’ me. If you want my job, you have to trust me.”

His words were tough, but Ryan knew he sincerely cared about her future and the future of this office. Ryan did want his job. She wanted it more than anything. Leonard Duncan had already announced his plans to retire at the end of his term, and rumors were circulating as to who he would anoint as his successor. Ryan knew she was his choice. She was chomping at the bit to become the first woman elected District Attorney of Dallas County, but she hated inserting herself into a case, especially when it was a blatant grab at publicity. Ryan briefly considered telling Jeff the decision to make her lead on the case was Duncan’s, but she decided hiding behind her boss would make her look weak.

“Jeff, you’ve done a great job on this case. I wouldn’t want to try the case without you.” Ryan knew he would click to the implicit threat. “I’m sure we’ll make a great team, and I look forward to working closely with you on this case.” Ryan forced a smile, turned, and marched out of the still packed workroom. She barely made it out of the room before Jeff muttered “bitch” for everyone in the waiting crowd to hear.

“About freaking time you got here.”

“Hi, Tony, it’s good to see you too. Is Mrs. Jarvis in the conference room?” Brett had snuck in the back door of the office suite and was busying stowing the files from her morning cases.

“Yep. Give me those files and get up there. Now!” Tony pushed her toward the door. “Oh, and I called the number for your anonymous e-mailer again. I let it ring a thousand times, but no one answered. I hope you didn’t miss another big case because you didn’t take the time to call yourself.”

Brett whirled on him. “Tony! Cut me some slack! I remember once upon a time when people had to wait a few hours to have their messages returned because we didn’t have instant messaging, wireless e-mail, and itty bitty cell phones we could tuck in our bras. Back then the only people who had cell phones were the fabulously wealthy and people on TV like Charlie’s Angels, and even they looked stupid because they were holding phones the size of bread boxes up to their ears.

“I always return my messages, even if I don’t do it within nanoseconds of receiving them.” She paused to catch her breath. “I’m going to meet with Mrs. Jarvis now. I promise to sign her up and get a big pile of money. In exchange, you will wait until at least four thirty before you ask me another question about who I’ve called or e-mailed today. Deal?”

Tony merely nodded his head. She knew he knew she was more exasperated than angry. Brett was well aware her little tirade had no effect on him and, though he might go easy on her this afternoon, he would resume his job as head nag first thing in the morning. Sighing at her lack of authority in this, her own law practice, she trudged toward the conference room to meet with her client of means.

Mrs. Jarvis owned a string of small ambulance companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, all of which had been raided by a federal task force the day before. Brett was familiar with the scenario. Feds, most of them desk types dressed out for the first time in flak jackets, descended on a bunch of businesses, badges in hand. The employees of the business were detained for hours while the gun-toting feds loaded up their vans with the company’s computers, records, and anything else they thought looked interesting and came remotely close to matching the items identified in their search warrant that proclaimed allegations of Medicare fraud. The guns and bulletproof vests were all for show—a scare tactic designed to convince the employees that now was their chance to start spilling the beans about their employer’s nefarious business practices lest they become targets of the investigation themselves.

Brett hated these cases. The next few months would be spent interviewing all the employees and reviewing box after box of records in an attempt to convince the federal investigators their allegations of fraud were baseless. She would spend hours thumbing through patient files and billing records. There was rarely ever a smoking gun for either side. Instead, shades of gray would separate her client’s position from the government’s allegations of fraud. But because the legal fees usually reached into the tens of thousands, Brett couldn’t justify turning these paper-intensive cases away. As she watched Mrs. Jarvis sign her contract and present her hefty retainer, Brett knew Tony would be proud.

Brett walked past Tony’s workspace and let the signed contract and cashier’s check glide through the air to rest on top of his desk. She kept walking and merely waved over her shoulder when he called out his praise. She knew he would waste no time opening a new file, sending a letter of representation to the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, and scheduling employee interviews, all details Brett had no patience for. If she didn’t have Tony, she would never even consider taking these white collar federal cases. She preferred the relatively paper-free atmosphere of the state courthouse where deals were done with a handshake rather than multiple versions of a written agreement passed back and forth between sides.

Sliding behind her desk, Brett smiled at the fresh cup of coffee faded with heavy cream waiting next to her computer keyboard. No matter how much he fussed at her, Tony fussed over her just as much.

Brett switched on the power to her twenty-inch monitor and scanned her e-mail. She understood the necessity of having a BlackBerry, but she hated trying to read messages on the postage stamp-sized screen and her thumbed-out responses were usually unintelligible. She preferred answering her e-mails when she could actually see them on the big screen. Brett spotted the cryptic e-mail she had received earlier and typed her reply:

My office tried to call you to schedule an appointment, but no one answered. I’m in the office if you want to call me. It would help if you could tell me more about your situation so I’ll be prepared when we talk. Brett.

She hit send and reached for the waiting cup of coffee. Seconds later, a pop-up announced she had new mail.

Thanks. Don’t want to give more details this way. I will call you but would prefer to do it later. Cell number?

Brett read the new message and paused before answering. She used to give out her cell phone number to anyone who asked, but clients with the inability to distinguish between a true emergency and the mere need to chat had disrupted her beauty sleep on one too many occasions. Years of disrupted personal moments had driven her to use an answering service for after-hour callers. She still returned calls at all hours, but the service minimized the interruption to her evenings.

Brett reread the e-mail. Something about the enigmatic e-mailer sparked her curiosity. Against her better judgment, she typed:
Okay. Call me on cell—see number below. Brett
and hit send.